Christmas tree decoration



Oct. 6, 1942. N. VEENBOER' 2,298,089

CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATION} Filed July 25, 1940 INVENTOR, 4 11 0102a: M11306? ATTORNEY.

Patented Oct. 6, 1942 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATION Nicholas Veenboer, Paterson, N. J. Application July 2 5 1940, Serial No. 347,429

1 Claim.

This invention relates to Christmas-tree decorations of the electrical illuminating type. It is known by prior patents, as my own Patent No. 2,047,045, to provide a decoration of this class characterized by an elongated flexible electro-conductive means, as of insulated wire, having loop-like branches containing illuminating resistances, or electric lamps. Said means was to be held with a portion thereof in embracing relation to the tree-trunk and the branches radiating therefrom and supported by the limbs of the tree. For this purpose there was provided a system of pre-formed rigid parts adapted to embrace the tree-trunk and form a support or holder for said portion of the electro-conductive means, said parts being flexibly connected together so as to be to assume embracing relation to the tree-trunk. Such a support or holder so enhances the cost of manufacture of the device as Very considerably to limit its salability.

The principal object of this invention is to provide a Christmas-tree decoration of the electric illuminating type the cost of producing which shall not be very appreciably more than the cost of the actual electrically active part thereof. Instead of resort to a system of fiexibly connected rigid parts I provide the device with a fillet which is flexible from substantially end to end and holds bound thereto segments of said flexible electro-conductive means whose resistance-containing loops, being in circuit, extend laterally from such fillet, said fillet being so constructed as normally to maintain the loops in looped state. (When, in this disclosure, I define the fillet as flexible I mean that it is so from substantially end to end thereof and in substantially every increment of its length, after the manner of a wire.)

The resistances may be in series or in parallel and, as will appear.

In the drawing,

Fig. 1 shows one form of the device in elevation;

Fig. 2 shows another form, partly in diagram and some of the portions I811 omitted; and

Fig. 3 shows the device of Fig. 2 with the sheath I! in open state.

In Fig. 1 I4 is an elongated fillet existing as a flexible sheath, generally tubular but actually formed at intervals with apertures Ma which in their respective zones leave the fillet with nontubular segments between and thus spacing the actually tubular segments. An insulating wire 12 is rebent to provide two stretches one of which, l2a2, extends straight through the sheath and the other of which is formed between its segments lZa, which are within the sheath and parallel with such stretch l2a:, with segments I211 which extend through the apertures Ma, and exist as loops containing the illuminating resistances [3. The fillet may be held in embracing state by providing one end thereof with an axial socket i5 and the other with an axial tongue [5 to enter and fit the socket. The resistances here exist in series in the circuit.

Figs. 2 and 3 show a form in which the fillet will again be formed by a sheath but the resistances are in parallel in the circuit. l1 designates an elongated blank of flexible material, as leather, to form the sheath, it having a longitudinal central line of apertures lid at intervals. The flexible electro-conductive means here comprises two leads l8, as insulated wires, which in the ultimate form (Fig. 2 of the fillet will lie parallel and close together. The sheath is to exist folded on its longitudinal central line and its long margins secured together face to face, as by cementing. Alined segments of said means will then exist at 18a (each such segment here comprising portions of both leads). Flexible portions [3b, in circuit with segments I811, exist as loops extending through the apertures Ila and each has therein an illuminating resistance I9. In order electrically to connect the segments lab with the two leads the latter must be stripped of their insulation at the connecting points, as 20, and to prevent short-circuiting in the completed state of the fillet (the blank being folded as described) such points of one lead are arranged, as shown, out of registry with those of the other.

The electro-conductive means in any case may be put in circuit with a suitable source of electric energy, as by a plug 2| of conventional form having a pair of contacts 2 la to form the terminals of said means.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim is:

In a Christmas-tree decoration, the combination of a fillet existing as a tubular sheath existing flexible and free to flex at substantially all points in its length and having lengthwise displaced apertures and also having one end formed as an axial socket and the other end as a tongue to enter the socket, lamps arranged lateral of and remote from the fillet and each containing an illuminating resistance, and flexible insulated electro-conductive means forming with the resistances an electric circuit and having insulated segments thereof extending through the respective portions of the fillet alternating with its apertures and insulated segments thereof intervening between the first-named segments reaching laterally from the fillet through the respective apertures and containing the resistances.

NICHOLAS VEENBOER. 

